Cowtown has an official bird. See which one made the cut to represent Fort Worth
The Eastern Bluebird beat out five other avian competitors to earn the honor of being Fort Worth’s official bird.
The selection came as part of a collaboration between the city and the Fort Worth school district.
Students from 18 Fort Worth schools researched and presented their birds sharing fun facts and making arguments as to why their assigned species deserved to represent the city.
The other species in the running were the barred owl, Carolina chickadee, red-bellied woodpecker, red-shouldered hawk and great egret.
The Eastern Bluebird stood out for embodying qualities like hope, happiness, peace and joy, according to a school district press release.
The idea for the contest came out of a professional learning event attended by the district’s science department on ways to engage students in culturally relevant instruction, district spokesperson Cesar Padilla told the Star-Telegram in December 2023.
Students were studying the state bird of Texas, the (northern) mockingbird, and the district thought it would be a good opportunity to engage students by picking a bird for the local community, Padilla said.
The project also gave students an opportunity to research, collect data, and construct explanations and develop arguments, which are all important characteristics of being a scientist, said district science curriculum chief Rocco Williams in the press release.
The Eastern Bluebird has a range stretching from as far north as Maine and as far south as the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, but it spends most of its time in the southern United States between the Metroplex and the Carolinas, according to Cornell University and a presentation by students at Westcliff Elementary School.
It also has a reputation for friendliness, which one student argued fits well with Texas’ reputation as the one of the friendliest states in the nation.
Another student noted that Eastern Bluebirds eat invasive pests like mosquitoes, and won’t attack household pets unlike another contestant, the Red Shouldered Hawk.
The Fort Worth city council will pass a proclamation at its May 14 meeting at City Hall recognizing the Eastern Bluebird’s triumph.
